


World without Water

by AuriferousEyes



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Aang (Avatar)-centric, Angst, F/M, Post-Canon, Sad Ending, Tearjerker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuriferousEyes/pseuds/AuriferousEyes
Summary: Have you ever thought of a world without water? How the broken sea floor would feel exposed to hot sun? Cracks in riverbeds, chapped lips and dry throats begging for reprieve. The stillness and eternity of icebergs giving away to nothing, nothing, nothing?Aang attends Katara's funeral.
Relationships: Aang & The Gaang (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35





	World without Water

Have you ever thought of a world without water?How the broken sea floor would feel exposed to hot sun? Cracks in riverbeds, chapped lips and dry throats begging for reprieve. The stillness and eternity of icebergs giving away to nothing, nothing, nothing?

Aang hadn't either. To him water was a constant. A trickle down his spine, firm against his cheek. Nurturing his children with soft scolding and ardent love.

There was no question of "if" she was there, only where.

As he knelt beside her body, he asked her where she went. They had travelled the world together, to the door of death and the foot of salvation, to heights that no one could dream.

"So why did you leave me now?" He asks, and the voice of his youth was gone replaced by creaking age and mourning so bitter it turned his stomach.

And the love of his youth was gone, replaced by something so cold he wondered how much bending it would take to warm her again.

He wonders how much bending mattered if he couldn't bring her back.

"I'd give it up, y'know." He murmurs, reaching forward to smooth a grey braid back from wrinkled skin. Kya had arranged her hair carefully, and Aang cannot bear to think of how his daughter's tears looked upon her mother's locks.

He had traced the topography of her face every night, committed her to memory. Even before he could touch her, his eyes drank as much as he could as they fell asleep, curled against Appa's warmth. His fingers found the same path again. Touching the wrinkles beside her eyes, the rivers pressed into her cheeks from decades of laughter. Aang hadn't realised how soon he would be relying on thoughts of her instead of her being.

Aang wonders how the world still exists. Why it hadn't opened a gaping maw of pain and swallowed existence hole. How the sun still shone so brightly, why the wind would dare to flick at the curtain.

He had expected to turn and find it as barren as his heart felt.

He presses his forehead to he ground beside her, and his sadness is a being that chains him. He can feel it binding his soul, rending his heart.

"How are they going to run the hospital now, huh?" He hisses, tears hot on his cheek. "How is the White Lotus supposed to function? Who is going to make Bumi and Tenzin make up when they fight?" Who was going to heal this raw broken thing Aang could barely recognize as his heart?

There is movement outside the tent and he hears Bumi's voice calling to him, but his son is so far away. Kya's voice joins him and it hurts all the more. A part of Aang starts, wanting to move a cloth over the body. He can't let the children see, he can't let the children see.

But when the children enter the igloo they are not children. Kya's arm loops through his, and she leans her head against his shoulder. Aang remembers the first time she pressed his daughter into his chest, the joy in her eyes. Aang lets Tenzin pull him to his feet. Bumi touches his back, and Aang is worried if any of them let go that he will fall apart. He is riddled with guilt for not being strong enough for them, they have lost so much too. But he'll allow himself this grief. For today.

They scaffold him, keeping him upright to the final place she will lay. To the left of Hakoda, Sokka taking up the right. Their graves are still, and Aang is comforted by the thought that she'll be close to family.

There are figures here, but Aang cares for none of them.

Someone comes forward to lay a wrapped figure on the ground, caribou fur rustling slightly in the Arctic wind. It takes Aang a moment to realise it's her, that it really truly is her and she will never get up again.

He pinches himself, just to make sure. Nightmares had plagued him since the end of the war, none as terrible as this but he hoped. He hoped the pinch would shock him and he'd awake to the sound of her breathing. He'd turn in their bed, see her figure highlighted by a moon beam the colour of her hair. As always he'd throw an arm around her waist and pull her back into him, and hold her. She would fuss a bit in her sleep, but lull back soon enough, that smile spread across her lips. In the morning he'd make her breakfast. In the morning he'd ask her for a dance.

But Aang does not wake up. Because even in his worst dreams, he could not have imagined Bumi placing a small, ivory carved toy beside his mother's corpse. It's of a penguin seal. Aang recognizes it as part of a set, and knows that a similar figurine lies beside Sokka, feet away.

Tenzin steps forward, and Aang watches stricken as the young Airbender places pristine white bandages in the snow.

Kya is next, and Aang tries not to cry out in protest. The Air Nomads had taught him about peace in existence as well a death, about the cycle of life. He of all people, he the Avatar should know this. But the sight of Kya placing her first ulu beside her brothers' gifts is enough for Aang to forget everything he has ever been taught. She stumbles as she walks back, and Aang moves swiftly to catch her.

There is someone small beside him suddenly, and when he looks down he sees the grey streaked top of Toph's head. He hadn't realised she had made the trip. She reaches over to hold his hand, and there are no words to convey the feelings that past between them. There are images they are both thinking of, of nights by the fire, of arguments and laughter, of a soul as big as the sea. Tophs grief is raw and yearning and Aang clutches her fingers.

But she too pulls away, letting Bumi guide her through the snow to place a stone bowl beside the Ulu. On the side is a pattern of waves. Aang wants to drown in them, to let them take him back to her.

There is someone else at his side, moving through the gathered people. The scarlet of his scar is the only red in the world right now, and it hurts Aang to look at him.

"My friend." Zuko says, and he sounds so old.

"My friend." Aang replies, and he sounds so old.

With a nod Zuko approaches the figure. Aang notices the scroll held tightly in his hands. A waterbending scroll. Zuko places it by her feet. He stands still for a moment, staring down at her body before returning to Aang's side. There are tracks of tears through his scar.

There are no words to say. Speeches will come after when people will find their voices. Right now the only sounds are of the howling wind, sobs, and the scraping of stone as the Water tribesmen begin to build the cairn around her. Toph helps, bending more support, ensuring that it will remain untouched for eons. Ensuring it will be a constant against the horizon of the tundra.

Aang sinks to the snow, and his family is there with him. He is touched by the people she touched, loved by the people she loved. Toph clutches him around the waist, Zuko is holding is shoulder. Tenzin holds his hand in a way he hasn't since he was a child, and Kya does the same. He feels Bumi's tears against his head, and the press of his beard. But nothing will fill the emptiness left by her. Aang knows he will live another hundred life times and never find someone like her.

When the stone structure is complete, and her body is safe from the elements and scavengers Aang rises. Hands fall away from him, reaching out to the absence he leaves. They watch, eyes of amber and stone, of azure and citrine, as the Avatar presses his hand against the monument. When his arm drops there is a single name inscribed in it's place.

Katara.

Aang kneels to press a soft blue ribbon with a round pendant into the ground. He remembers how he watched it dangle from her throat the first time they met. How it danced with them on their wedding day. How their children used to grab at it, small fists waving in mirth. Aang wonders how many people had seen it quiver over them as she worked her healing. How many times she touched the pendant in reverance.

Aang wonders how he will live a life without the one who saved his.

"Thank you. Thank you for giving me your forever, Katara." He whispers.

The wind picks up, making a sprinkling of snow melt on his face and he pretends it's a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> This funeral is based off of traditional Inuit funeral rituals. Hurt to write but inspiration gripped me by the throat.


End file.
